"You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.”
-Marian Wright Edelman

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Guatemala: Children Kidnapped from Orphanage/Some Returned

According to news reports, armed kidnappers forced their way into a Guatemalan orphanage in Guatemala City in the middle of the night on Sunday, March 11 and abducted five of the orphanage's youngest children.

The children were presumed to have been kidnapped in order to be sold on the black market.

Don't know if it means anything, but the kidnappings took place the day before US President George Bush was to arrive in Guatemala City.

Among the children stolen was a baby (M) with a cleft palate, whom an American couple, had "nearly finished adopting." The couple had spent several days with her on several different trips and had been expecting final clearance on the adoption "any day now."

Concerned that the child might not be adoptable on the black market because of her condition (which the kidnappers may not have noticed during the nighttime abduction), M's prospective parents were especially worried about what might become of her.

Being told that:

"...no children stolen by black-market adoption brokers in Guatemala had ever been recovered"

...only added to their worries.

Therefore, it was with much relief and surprise that they learned that M and two others of the five abducted children, were returned to the orphanage two days later--again, in the middle of the night.

"That three of the children were returned so quickly after being kidnapped, 'is very unusual,' said Audrey Leonard, director of international adoptions at The Family Network, "But we still have two children missing."

The US State Department has reportedly confirmed the kidnapping and confirmed that three of the kidnapped children have been returned. However, confidentiality policies have prevented them from giving any details of the events, any details about the orphanage involved, or details about the children themselves.

Details about the kidnappings have not been available anywhere in the press. Indeed the only general news source that seems to have covered the kidnappings is the local newspaper in M's prospective parents' hometown.

Lock those doors, post those armed guards. Human children are now as valuable as gold or cash in the markets of the world.

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Contributing Fleas

Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

Adult Adoptee Voices

"We are not commodities. We are children that were torn away from our countries, our parents, and our culture. We are not the newest fad. We are women and men who forever have a hole that cannot be filled. We have voices, and we use them to express our outrage, our bitterness, our anger, and also our joy,our love,and our lives. To learn from us is to listen to what is, sometimes,underneath."

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

"We are not animals to be bought and sold,"

--Ana Escobar, a Guatemalan mother whose baby was stolen from her and who suspected her child was funneled into the International Adoption system. Ana diligently searched for her child through pending adoption paperwork until she found her--with a false identity and fake DNA tests--waiting to be processed for adoption by a US family. After a new DNA test confirmed Ana was her child's mother, the two were reunited.